Voting rights groups ramp up efforts

Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann said the Justice Department doesn't need to send federal observers or monitors to the state to watch for election problems. He said the state has its own monitors.(Photo: Rogelio V. Solis/AP)

WASHINGTON — National and local voting rights activists, worried about threats to casting ballots nationwide, are setting up command centers, staffing hotlines and deploying thousands of monitors to polling sites across the country to ensure voters can get to the polls.

“Folks are pretty much on high alert,’’ said Scott Simpson, director of media and campaigns for the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of 200 groups. “There is no election like this in modern history and we are taking every precaution that we can, within our means, to prevent intimidation and to make sure that folks know that they will be able to cast their ballots free from intimidation.’’

With talk about “rigged’’ elections in the presidential campaign and the Supreme Court's rejection of a key section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, civil rights and voting rights activists, including some in Mississippi, say they’re concerned about possible shenanigans and roadblocks at the polls.

Voting rights advocates are particularly worried about potential problems in states, mostly in the South, that used to be required to get approval or "pre-clearance" from the Justice Department before making any changes in election procedures because they had a history of discrimination at the polls. A 2013 Supreme Court decision — Shelby County v. Holder — threw out that provision. This will be the first presidential election since pre-clearance was eliminated in those states.

"We are keeping an eye out for voter purges, efforts to change polling sites at the 11th hour, barriers that people may face as they come up against registration deadlines," said Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann said his office will dispatch 40 election observers across the state. That's in addition to the 10,000 trained poll workers deployed in the state.

“I don’t see discrimination occurring in Mississippi, anywhere in our state," Hosemann said. “I think we turned the page on that. Obviously, we’ve had problems before now, but we don’t anymore."

He said Mississippi is the only state to implement a voter ID law that hasn't been challenged in court.

“Mississippi elections are not going to be rigged," he said. “I think we’ll have a free and fair election and a smooth election in Mississippi."

Voting rights advocates say they are focusing resources on key battleground states, including Florida, North Carolina and Ohio, but they're also ramping up efforts in the South, which has had a long history of discrimination at the polls.

“I am concerned about places that have a history of voter suppression tactics and we’ve heard lot of rumors about various voter intimidation activities so I’m going to definitely be looking for that," said Holli Holliday, Unity16 Campaign Coordinator for the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation. “I hope that we don’t see it cropping up in new ways this election, but I’m very concerned about that, particularly living without the protections of the Voting Rights Act and not having federal election monitors in place."

The Justice Department has said it will send fewer federal election observers to jurisdictions this election because of the Supreme Court decision.

Justice officials say they will still send some observers to jurisdictions under court orders, but in the past most observers were sent to states that required pre-clearance. The agency said this week monitors will be deployed to polling sites and staff will be ready to handle discrimination and other complaints. The number of monitors and observers will be released closer to Election Day, officials said.

Meanwhile, voting rights activists are stepping up their own efforts.

The Mississippi NAACP has said it will have monitors in several counties. It also deployed monitors for the 2014 Senatorial race.

It's important "to ensure that every citizens’ right is protected,’’ said Derrick Johnson, president of the state NAACP.

Election Protection, a coalition of more than 100 civil rights and voting rights groups, has set up a national hotline (866-OURVOTE) where 4,500 legal volunteers will field calls. It is also plans to send monitors to 29 states and set up a national command center in Washington, D.C.

“We’re planning to be in more places than we were … in the 2012 presidential cycle just because of the number of barriers that we have seen states put in place since the Shelby County ruling," said Clarke. “Based on the kind of complaints that we’ve heard from voters we see a real need to be in as many states as possible."

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights sent a letter to secretaries of state Monday urging them to take extra precautions.

The National Council of La Raza, a nonpartisan advocacy group, has ramped up its voter registration and education efforts in places like Nevada, particularly making sure new voters know their rights.

The group is also providing voters with numbers to call if there are irregularities, said Clarissa Martinez de Castro, a vice president at NCLR. “The Latino community is a young community so a lot of our voters are going to be first-time voters," she said.

The Ohio Coalition on Black Civic Participation created an app (Ohio Unity) for voters to check their registration status and other information. The group also hopes to recruit 250 poll monitors.

“I think election protection is needed every election cycle," said Petee Talley, convener of the Ohio Coalition on Black Civic Participation and the secretary/treasurer of the Ohio AFL-CIO. "At the end of the day, policy makers make changes to how they administer elections throughout the year. I think we always have to be talking about election protection and making sure people have the most up to date information about what it means to cast a ballot and have that ballot counted."